My Ex Was the First Person to Refer to Me as a "Woman" Instead of a Girl

I was holding the three-page letter in my hands, sitting in the shade in Central Park. It was May, and it was hot—half the city was scattered around me in the grass. I was sipping my pre-coffee-drinking-era beverage of choice, a Starbucks hot chocolate. I'll never forget that day.

I wasn't sure if I should take him back. Our relationship began very informally when I wasn't looking for a boyfriend (isn't that how it always happens, when you least expect it?). One of us was drunk the first time we spoke. Neither of us was drunk the first time we kissed.

"We've been through so much..."

When I met him, I wore sequins on Saturday nights. The only drink I knew of was a vodka cranberry. Sunday brunch consisted of a sandwich from the local deli, which I then ate in bed in my boxers and ribbed tank, cross-legged (some things never change). He told me he didn't want a girlfriend. I told him I didn't want a boyfriend, and I meant it. I meant it when I made out with someone else at a club on Cinco de Mayo, and I meant it when he kissed me in the children's toy aisle of Duane Reade, after snapping a pair of plastic handcuffs onto my wrists. I meant it when I took a trip across the world without him. I might not have meant it when he pretended he had to go to the bathroom in the airport once, only to return to the gate with a Starbucks hot chocolate for me. And it was a Venti.

"You are beautiful, sexy, smart..."

We took fun trips together that required passports. We debated politics and reality TV with equal fervor. He took me to client dinners and let me steer the conversation from work to play, smiling and never interrupting. He didn't like it when I IM'ed him at work. I didn't like it when he ignored my text messages.

"You've become my best friend..."

He taught me about Brunello and how to breathe properly while running. He helped me construct emails when shit went wrong at work, and he planned a celebration every time something went really right. He wasn't afraid to cry in front of me. He made me cry a lot. He flirted with just about every girl and made me look like a complete idiot. He ignored me when it was convenient for him. Whenever I needed him, though, he would drop anything—anything—and be there.

"You are an amazing woman."

I looked up from the third page of his typed-out letter, letting my vision blur out of focus so that the world around me turned fuzzy. A woman? Me?

I sat in silence for a minute, then let the park come back into focus. I was watching kids kick around soccer balls and groups of friends splayed out on old sheets in the grass. A plane made its way across the city above me and, just for a moment, drowned out the city noise with its consistent, slow hum.

I had always hated flying, but I'd flown more places with him than I had ever before in my life. I took risks and did crazy things. I said yes more often than I said no. I tried harder at work and made more of an effort to be outgoing in social situations. I changed my hair, my job, and my wardrobe. Over the course of this relationship, I'd grown up; years had passed without my taking notice, and though it felt like nothing changed, everything had.

So much of who we are on any given day depends on what we did the day before. And the day before that. It doesn't feel like much at the time, but eventually all of those individual days suddenly add up to something.

It's hard to pinpoint when you stop being a "girl" and start being a "woman." It's not as simple as saying you qualify if you have fully grown breasts and non-Ikea furniture. But if you're someone who's learned some lessons the hard way, someone who pays bills and makes plans and takes risks and has opinions...then maybe you've crossed an invisible threshold of some sort. I knew at that moment that I had. And though it took a man to make me realize it, being a woman was my own achievement. Something that meant knowing who I was and owning the unique identity I had created over the years...regardless of who was or wasn't by my side.